I have a confession to make.

 

I like the Green MSP Alison Johnstone. In fact I grew quite fond of her when we served together on the Scottish Parliament’s Economy, Energy and Tourism committee. She is warm hearted, smart and sensible and has a willingness to make compromises. I think she will make a good Presiding Officer.

I say this despite her decision along with the SPCB ( Scottish Parliament Corporate Body ) to pursue the matter of banning demonstrations from the grounds of the Parliament. They say it is only some demonstrations that will be banned, but which ones? and who gets to decide which will be banned and which not? Over five years in Parliament I never once saw a demonstration that was a problem, including the independence campaigners who decided to camp there for a considerable period. They were entirely inoffensive and in no way interfered with the business of the Parliament.

Their only crime, I believe, was to offend the prissy sense of propriety that has grown around our Parliament which welcomes the so called ‘progressives’ and holds its nose at the reality of what is the real Scotland, sometimes gritty, sometimes unwashed and always reeking of authenticity.  

That is why I was so pleased that delegates at last weekend’s inaugural Alba Conference overwhelmingly backed a topical/emergency motion urging the Scottish Parliament to abandon this proposal.

And what a Conference it was, reminiscent of the SNP Conferences of old, but all the better I think, because so many members having been through the experience of what went wrong with SNP, are wiser now, kinder and more tolerant. It was this that allowed some very clever and graceful debate of some of the most difficult issues, in which, we currently find ourselves enmeshed. The most contentious of these issues were debated in a spirit of happy comradeship that was entirely uplifting.

Themes that might have had Victorian ladies fainting in the aisles were handled  delicately, sometimes with humour and always with respect and courtesy, so that even those with the most tender and timid of dispositions could scarcely be offended and yet the salient points were made and made well.  

I was uplifted further by the quality of the speakers. Speaker after speaker, some young, some old, many of them first time speakers, rose and informed and sometimes even entertained us, tackling their subjects with wit and wisdom. Clever folk all of them and each of them deserving the ovations they got. I clapped until my hands were sore and kept on clapping.

The crowning glory as expected was Alex Salmond’s speech. It was of course, the real stuff, the right stuff; ‘Uisge beatha’, and the delegates drank deeply of it, dead ended as they have been, in a dry gulch for the seven long years since 2014. The ovations went on and on until at last we spilled out into the late afternoon autumn sunshine, loitering in pleasant conversation and lingering in the afterglow of what had been a wonderful weekend.

For me it is time to get the sleeves rolled up and it feels good to once again have my shoulder to the wheel of something that has both integrity and nobility.

Make no mistake about it. Alba is Rising.